


Brave Toy Lions

by xaves



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaves/pseuds/xaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And all the knights of the bloody round table were dead, fragged to death in a cascade of grenades.</i>
</p><p>Lieutenant Arthur Pendragon meets Officer Cadet Merlin Ambrose in a trench. Because trench warfare Merthur seemed like a good idea at the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave Toy Lions

It had rained the day before. The cold drizzle had buried into his hair, his clothes, his skin, and in the end, it didn’t change much. He would have been cold anyway.  
  
The ground beneath his boots squelched, sucking him in, pleading, _stop stop, don’t go,_ until he broke into a sprint, miles of muck stretching out before him. Like a rat in a trap, he had only one way to go from the vicious trench raid behind him, and the reserve seemed so far off, impossible and unreachable. Lieutenant Arthur Pendragon ran on, disregarding evasion tactics for the sake of breaking out to safety as soon as possible, the filth on his uniform keeping him invisible in the dim of night.  
  
He felt naked and loud, fierce exhales ripping through his lungs and very well alerting anyone that hello, here was a soldier, fresh for the killing. Bonus, he’d gone and jammed his rifle.  
  
The whistle was faint at first. A tiny whine in the distance, like a rumble of high-pitched thunder the beckoned frag rain. It was instinctual to duck, throw his body to the ground and pray to Jesus, God, his mother, the milk man, whoever. Luckily for him, someone up there must have been listening, because it wasn’t soft ground that he fell to, but 2 meters of empty air, then hard earth of the third reserve trench line.  
  
The shell went off a mile to the left. Dull black lightning. But for now, he was safe. Weathered the storm, as it were.  
  
Exhaustion wracked his body, weighing down his feet, and if not for his stern self-control, he would have been content to lie down and sleep immediately, and to hell with duty, his platoon, this damn war.  
  
Without warning, fingers closed around his shoulder. Blind and sore, it was only adrenaline that allowed Arthur to grab the foreign, unwelcome hand roughly in an instinctive response, spinning around and sending the other man directly into the trench wall.  
  
“Don’t! Don’t, please-“  
  
Squinting, Arthur could make out wide blue eyes from a face slathered in mud. The uniform was just as soiled; no identification. The accent was English, certainly, but for all he knew…  
  
“Ranking and name, soldier.” His fingers slipped over dirty army-issued jacket, unable to get a proper grip.  
  
“Ambrose. Officer Cadet.” The lanky man grit out, making no move of protest against Arthur’s hands that were pinning him, but the look of panic did not fade.

“Please. Just-” Fingers with nails that were black as tar scrabbled along a patch on his shoulder, too mud-encrusted to see. “Can I…?” With Arthur’s short nod, the younger soldier proceeded to brush away until the colors of the Union Jack came away.  
  
Same side. Not allies. Not enemies. Fellow soldiers.  
  
Arthur wished he wasn’t as relieved as he was, finding this gangly idiot amidst a ransacked platoon and invaded trenches, but the company was surprisingly welcome and the smile came to his face almost unbidden as he released the strained breath he had been holding. He even helped dust Ambrose off, not missing the dried blood on his hands and the gun off to the side where the cadet had been rooted before the Lieutenant had gone and almost fallen on him.  
  
“You’re-” Ambrose stared, “Lieutenant Pendragon. _Sir_.”  
  
“At ease.” Arthur rolled his eyes at the salute, sitting down with a grimace and a groan. He had been entrenched too long. So much could be put under that; been on half rations too long. Been in combat too long. Been away from home too long. Too long, overstretched and thin, worn out like boot heels and patience. “Not really a time for pomp. Just call me Arthur and bring me water, if you have it.”  
  
“Yes sir, Arthur. Erm. Sir.” With a flush that could be seen even through the mud on his cheeks, Ambrose scurried off with his orders, returning not moments later with a heavy canteen of water and a sheepish grin. “Last I have, sir.”  
  
“Then we had better use it wisely.” He fumbled with the lid, but the water felt like a miracle going down his parched throat. Two swallows, then he extended it to the other man. “Sit. Drink.”  
  
To give Ambrose credit, he only hesitated a moment before his knees seemed to collapse underneath him and he tumbled into the dirt next to Arthur, taking the water and taking grateful sips of the stuff. Arthur watched in silence, noting the faint boom of shells outside the trench, but hearing the audible gulp of Ambrose swallowing more than anything else. His uniform hung loose on too skinny shoulders, legs gawky and awkward. The man couldn’t have been more than 20, if that. Though perhaps the filth added a few years in his favor.  
  
“What do your friends call you, Cadet?” Merlin was much closer now, mud-caked shoulder almost to his, cheeks smeared in the stuff, dusty down to his eyelashes. He drew breath from his bones, it seemed, since there was so very little meat on them.  
  
“Stringbean.” Ambrose caught Arthur’s raised eyebrow and laughed, resting his arms over knobby knees. “Oh, you mean, back home? Merlin, mostly. S’my first name.”  
  
And all the knights of the bloody round table were dead, fragged to death in a cascade of grenades.  
  
It was painfully simple, sitting at the bottom of a hole in the ground, listening to the call of shells and whistles of the twittering explosions miles off. To hear Merlin babble on about how his patrol had never received the orders to retreat, the devastation that had come with that mistake.  
  
“It was grenades. Two. Not even Will, he didn’t- And I didn’t know where to go, not without orders, I just-” His voice grated, rough as gravel in his mouth, tired and rattled. He was dirty to his very throat, and it did not suit him. This stick figure in a mud suit belonged in a library, not in a war zone. He needed suits, not uniforms. A soft woman to make him dinners instead of commands. And certainly, a bath.  
  
Arthur had been born for war. One of the few who thrived in it. Merlin had stumbled in with a gun that he didn’t know how to use and a misplaced sense of loyalty for Queen and Country.  
  
His eyes shifted, down his chapped lips, over red-rimmed eyes, down bruised knuckles and hands that were shaking in his lap. His hair was probably black, inky, if it didn’t have so much earthy crumbs plastered in, making it a dull grey color.  
  
The pitch of night pressed on until it felt like they were swimming in it, a ragged duo floating in their mud hole. All at once, Arthur felt ready to sleep for days again. Sleep unending. Just rest. Instead, nodding absently Arthur took the canteen again, tugging out a surprisingly clean handkerchief from the inside of his beat-up jacket, Arthur poured the tiniest amount of water into the rag. “Lean over.”  
  
He had interrupted Merlin mid-speech; something about his mother. The look Arthur got in exchange was surprised and carrying a fair hint of suspicion. “Why?”  
  
“Just do it, Merlin.” The flair of commanding condescension did the trick, allowing Arthur to start small, gentle sweeps over Merlin’s dirty face, wiping away the dark brown and black to reveal pale cheeks, wide brow, pointed chin. Merlin sat still all the while, eyes wide, staring at his superior officer as his mask was wiped clean.  
  
“Why are you doing this?”  
  
“You’re not in my platoon,” Arthur started, speaking carefully, concentrating on the task at hand, dipping into a pattern of water, swipe, scrub, watching skin come through, even as the night pressed in around them, “I know all the men in my squadron, Cadet Ambrose, and you are obviously not one of them.”  
  
He could actually feel Merlin’s adam’s apple bob in the swallow. “No.”  
  
“And if what you say is true, then most of your men have been killed in action. So…” He hesitates, “As your superior officer, it is now my duty to see you to safety. Does this suit you?”  
  
“Yes, sir. Arthur.” Merlin admitted softly, relaxing from his stiff pose marginally. With a sigh, he took the cloth from Arthur’s fingers, the canteen, and set to wiping at his lieutenant’s face in return. “Pretty filthy yourself, if we’re on the subject.” Arthur sat without protest, the brush of cool handkerchief to his ruddy sun-burnt cheeks as good as a salve.  
  
“Where are the rest of your men, then?”  
  
A soft grunt rolled on Arthur’s tongue. He had almost forgotten about them in the excitement of the day. “Gone. Hours ago.” Merlin’s unspoken question slid between them, so Arthur went ahead and answered it anyway. “I had to come back. For a friend.” Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a chain with two rings dangling on it.  
  
“My mate, Lance, the idiot, forgot the rings he had bought for this lovely girl back home. Gwen or something.” He laughed, despite Merlin’s incredulous expression. “I owe him my life. Least I could do was bring back something he had spent all his hard-earned money on. Love made him absolutely mad, I think.”  
  
“Love makes people do incredibly stupid things, _I_ think.”  
  
“You’re right there.” Arthur nodded ruefully, “Wasn’t worth it.”  
  
Two men laughing in a trench in the damn early hours of the morning, half a canteen of water, a pistol with no bullets (Merlin had later confessed that it wasn’t even his, for the love of god), a dirty handkerchief, and a set of rings for a wedding that was set to take place in another time, in a different place. But their faces were clean and Arthur’s arm fit easily around Merlin’s shoulder.  
  
It wasn’t until early morning that he could finally see that Merlin’s hair, beneath the exhaustion, really was black, inky dark. His face was buried in it, his hands, his lips, stupid, stupid things, caused by singing bombs and detonating hearts.


End file.
